EDITORIAL: We can unite behind offshore drilling resistance

Perhaps you’ve heard that we live in a deeply divided nation shredded by bitter partisanship.

But even now red and blue can still come together, especially when there’s a common enemy. The Trump Administration’s continued desire to open up the Atlantic coast to offshore drilling is creating exactly the kind of threat that largely transcends the usual political posturing. Coastal states up and down the Atlantic seaboard hate the prospect of offshore drilling, encompassing regions of both Democratic and Republican control.

New Jersey, not surprisingly, remains adamantly opposed, and news last week of administration approvals to begin seismic testing in the Atlantic generated the appropriate outrage.

Seismic testing is a precursor to offshore drilling. Blasts of compressed air from airguns towed by ships create sound waves that reflect off the ocean floor in an attempt to map potential oil and gas deposits. The process is by itself environmentally hazardous. The loud, powerful blasts can be repeated every 10-15 seconds over a period of months to cover the necessary ground. While there is no definitive data illuminating the effects of the testing, environmentalists say the blasts almost certainly harm marine life, and could be particularly dangerous for endangered whales.

But that’s just the beginning. Discovery of rich underground deposits would undoubtedly increase pressures to drill, which will then put coastal communities on high alert at the prospect of drilling rigs off the coast. One major spill from any of those sites would have a devastating effect on marine life and tourism, jeopardizing countless jobs in industries that rely upon a healthy and vibrant coastline.

The risks are real. Despite industry claims about safety upgrades and the miracles of technological advances, just one major accident could have a generational impact. We’ve seen it before and we’ll see it again.

In June of 2017, the entire New Jersey congressional delegation, Democrats and Republicans, signed on to a letter opposing any seismic testing permits. President Obama’s administration wouldn’t allow the permits – there hasn’t been any Atlantic seismic testing for oil and gas since the 1980s – and also maintained a ban on Atlantic offshore drilling. But that has all changed under Trump.

More drilling isn’t a path to greater independence from foreign oil, and it’s far from truly safe. Whatever jobs might be gained through expanded drilling will be more than balanced out by those lost in the event of a spill. Efforts to build a more substantial renewable energy grid will only be hampered by unnecessary drilling that primarily benefits Big Oil.

Simply put, there remain far more reasons to oppose offshore drilling than to support it, and lawmakers all along the Atlantic coast recognize that, from both sides of the aisle. They need to leverage that collective resistance, not just fight for individual exemptions off their own shores, which Florida managed to extract from Trump on offshore drilling leases as a political favor.